[Scott F.]

Hiya Guys,

Since recieving the SB3 I've been doing some more reading about internal CD drives. It appears that some do a better job of extracting the bits and also some extract those bits considerably faster than others. Since I'm only a computer goober (more advanced than a newbie) and not yet a full fledged computer geek, I thought I'd take a quick survey of which internal drive you think I should use to rip my CD's. These are the two that I have;

Sony DVD RW DRU530A and
Samsung CDRW/DVD SM3528

I was hoping some of you guys might have experience with with either (or both) of these drives.

Also, I've been thinking about upgrading my music storage drive. I've currently got a drive dedicated to music. Its 40 gig and does just fine for a limited amount of storage.

I was searching around for (say) a 300 gig or larger drive and ran across this at Tigerdirect.


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1272515&CatId=0

It looks interesting. It combines a DVD/CD drive and a 250 gig hard drive (it also has a flash card reader, cooling fan and soft start circuitry). It connects via a USB 2.0 connection. I sort of like the idea of getting both teh CD drive and storage drive out of my tower. It should be a nice and quiet environment for music plus the digital path from the CD drive and the hard drive are short (unless everythign re-routes back through the towers mother board).

Does anybody have any opinions on the INOi media tank?

TIA

[miklorsmith]

I'd separate the HD and CD/DVD drive.  250 gigs sounds like a ton until you've got it filled up.  Currently, I've got an 80 gig drive and a 250 gig drive, both full.

[kfr01]

Read reviews on the internet about "digital audio extaction" capabilities of those cd drives.

I have had the best luck with Lite-On and Plextor.

My Sony DVDR is horrible at digital audio extraction, taking much longer to work through errors than my Lite-On or Plextor.

[davehg]

The fan noise may be too loud. I chose the external 250gb LaCie Mini for my Mac Mini, primarily due to absence of noise.

PC users seem to like the Seagate drives. I use one for backup and it works well.

[lcrim]

I just ordered a 300GB drive and an enclosure w/o fan & USB, power supply and all cables for less than $150 from Newegg.  Do a little online research and you can probably do even better.
Yes, Plextor and LiteOn are highly thought of but if you are using EAC to rip, just about any drive will do a decent job.